The Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia is definitely worth visiting. It was a unique and highly influential prison, and the current site now has first-rate displays with the buildings intentionally kept in a state of semi-decay. The ambience perfectly matched the subject.
Once the USA’s largest prison, Eastern State Penitentiary opened in 1829 with an at-the-time revolutionary ambition, which was to lead the incarcerated into a feeling of remorse for having committed their crimes. Prisons in the 1700s were more like holding cells for all ages and genders until they got their cases sorted out (or perished waiting). They had not been for *punishment* — crimes instead merited fines, flogging, or death.
But Eastern State aimed to reform the prisoner, and the tactics used were by modern standards horrific. Prisoners were in total isolation. The received food and water through a small window, and once a day they were allowed out — hooded — to wander the exercise yard. Above each cell was a “deadeye”, a small window in the ceiling to let light in. The guards even wore wool stockings on their feet to maintain as much silence as possible. Astoundingly, the prison designers were trying to be humane (the silence was hoped to be contemplative) but many critics — including Charles Dickens — argued that the isolation would drive prisoners insane.
Eventually, Eastern State Penitentiary ended up inspiring models for 300 other prisons around the world. It ceased its isolating policies in 1913 and then ran as a regular prison until 1970, when overcrowding caused it to shut down.
The images here don’t do the buildings justice. And this small writeup doesn’t begin to cover other aspects of the displays. For instance, there is a lot of well-delivered information on modern incarceration in the USA, which for me was a lot more horrifying than the original prison.
The image with the second floor was a later wing, added due to demand — these cells had no ceiling window. The image of the cell with the lattice door shows how the original cells each did have doors that once a day allowed them into the exercise yard, alone. The long brick outdoor walls show how the prison was designed to have cell blocks extending out from “Center”, a round building from which guards could easily move from block to block. The exterior of the prison was done in neo-Gothic architecture designed to mimic a castle. But the “battlements” were too thin to actually function as such and the slit-eye windows were really fake, filled with cement.
